Maxwell’s defense of revolution, or how academia can help transform and save the world

Abstract

Review of Maxwell, N. (2014) Global philosophy: What philosophy ought to be? Exeter, UK: Imprint-Academic, Societas – Essays in Political & Cultural Criticism. (Pb, pp.192. ISBN 9781845407674).In his recent book, Nicholas Maxwell revisits for the most part ideas, arguments, and positions he has been defending quite forcefully for the past 40 years or so. These include his conceptions of what philosophy ought to be, about the nature of science and its progress-making features, how to best construe empiricism and rationality, his take on the history and philosophy of science, on philosophy and the history of philosophy, the nature of (academic) inquiry, and finally, his position about the role of education and the university more generally in view of his rather pessimistic yet compellingly realistic diagnosis of the problems and challenges confronting our world at this point in our history